A fortnight before my adopted daughter's arrival date, as I set up the cot in the baby's room and excitedly folded nappies and miniature clothes, I took a call from a social worker. Due to a previously overlooked piece of discretionary bureaucracy, she told me matter-of-factly that she might now delay the adoption by as much as a year. I was gripped by rage, horror and helplessness. That is the experience, for one reason or another, of too many prospective adopters. And at the same time vulnerable children languish in care – every extra week that they are separated from their “forever family” makes it harder for them to adjust throughout the rest of their lives.

Earlier this year I stood in the dusty doorway of an African orphanage in the Congo, rage consuming me as I watched two babies moan in pain. They were covered in flies and filth, misery etched on their faces. Their eyes were sealed with mucus. Tiny stick arms hung limply over distended stomachs.

For these children, there was no chance of adoption, let alone a new home with celebrity millionaires. Less than 100 yards away was the room they would move to within the next fortnight. The mortuary.

Baroness King of Bow: My Lords, this House knows that when a Bill is put before it, the government of the day usually get some of the legislation right and some wrong. But the wrongs contained in this Bill, whether by accident or design, are monumentally devastating. They cannot be made good by the benign aspects of the Bill or written off as collateral damage to be borne by British citizens in times of austerity. The Bill undermines the very compact between citizen and state. Were it to become law, British citizens who cannot afford a lawyer will effectively lose fundamental rights they have today.

Idris goes to Parliament

Questions in Parliament

I knew Jo because we both worked for the Kinnocks, we both worked for the Browns, we both worked for Labour Women's Network - which Jo Chaired - and we both had a habit of ending up in refugee camps.

In the run-up to Jo's election as an MP, she told me my diaries of Westminster nearly put her off. "Thing is", she said, "I know my constituency would never cause me as much grief as yours." This is the only thing Jo was wrong about.

Empowering women means giving them the practical tools to escape poverty and prejudice. Around the world, including here in Britain, a baby girl’s life chances are disadvantaged in comparison to her brother’s at almost every turn, and once she becomes a woman the disadvantage becomes entrenched.

Baroness King of Bow (Lab): My Lords, the online world is the real world for digital natives. That is exactly what worries so many of us. However, we would be doing our children a huge disservice if we viewed their online interactions in only a negative light. In fact, for many young people, the internet is far more likely to be a place of opportunity. The internet will bring them opportunities that generations before them could only dream of.

Latest Tweets...

DIVERSITY - IS IT BETTER TO BE MIXED RACE?

Sometimes being mixed race is like having a cloak of invisibility. The most remarkable hour of my life came when I put on a head scarf and went out alone to witness riots on the 'Arab street' in the Gaza Strip in June 2003. If the thousands of young Palestinians had known I was a Jew with an American and British passport, and an MP to boot, at best they would have kidnapped me, at worst killed me on the spot.